Browsing by Issue Date, starting with "2023-05-19"
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- Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the eating habits, physical activity and sedentary behaviours of school-aged children in 13 countries within the WHO European Region: “COSI COVID” Study, 2020-2022Publication . Rito, Ana; Buoncristiano, Marta; Mendes, Sofia; Figueira, Ines; Abdrakhmanova, Shynar; Akhmedova, Dilorom; Ciardullo, Silvia; Fijałkowska, Anna; Gualtieri, Andrea; Huidumac‐Petrescu, Constanta; Kakutia, Natia; Kujundžić, Enisa; Musić-Milanović, Sanja; Seyidov, Nabil; Tabona, Lorraine; Tichá, Ľubica; Heinen, Mirjam M.; Whiting, Steve; Williams, Julianne; Rakovac, Ivo; Wickramasinghe, KremlinIntroduction: In 2020, the world population was hit by a global pandemic caused by a new coronavirus (SARS-Cov2), with rapid human-to-human transmission. To limit the spread of the virus and minimize its impact, governments around the world implemented containment measures, leading to many changes in the lifestyle of millions of people. Although children and adolescents were, generally, at low risk of infection and less affected by mortality1, this unprecedented situation led to significant impacts in their daily routines/habits and had a profound effect on their health and well-being2-3. We aimed to understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the daily routine and behaviours of school aged children, within the WHO/COSI European study. Methods: 13 COSI countries participated in the study: Azerbaijan, Croatia, Georgia, Italy, Kazakhstan, Malta, Montenegro, Poland, Portugal, Romania, San Marino, Slovakia and Uzbekistan. Countries could decide to implement the study together with the 6th round of COSI/WHO Europe in the 2021/2021 school year. A common methodological protocol was designed for this study. Information on children’s behaviors regarding eating habits and physical activity/inactivity before and during the COVID-19 confinement periods, was collected through the “Family COSI-COVID Form” with 12 questions. This form was completed on a voluntary basis by the parents/care givers of participating children. Results: This study included 42 731 children (6-10 years old). Preliminary results suggested that sweets and savory snacks increased during the pandemic in comparison to pre-pandemic period (15.7% and 13,2%, respectively). As for children’s sedentary behaviours, 36.7% of the children increased their time spent watching TV, playing video/computer games, or using social media for non-educational purposes on weekdays and 34.4% on weekends, during the pandemic period. In addition, the time spent learning at home also increased (35.5%). Regarding physical activity, the opposite was reported, showing a decrease in the time children spent being active outside school hours, both on weekdays (26.6%) and weekends (22.0%). Conclusion: These preliminary results are important to better understand the impact of COVID-19 on children’s lifestyles behaviours. These findings may be useful for future public health interventions as countries recover from the pandemic and take measures to address childhood obesity.
- Improving data on overweight, obesity and undernutrition among children under the age of 5 years in the WHO European RegionPublication . Wickramasinghe, K.; Heinen, M.; Buoncristiano, M.; Pudule, I.; Rito, Ana; Spinelli, A.; Ahrens, W.; Borghi, E.; Flores-Urrutia, K.; McColl, K.; Sassi, F.; Williams, J.; Rakovac, I.Introduction: It is important for countries to be able to examine their progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals on malnutrition. Unfortunately, in the WHO European Region, there is limited and sparse crosssectional anthropometric measured data at national level from children under five years of age. The WHO European Office for the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases in collaboration with WHO Headquarters and as part of its participation in the European Union funded project “Science Technology Obesity Policy” (STOP), is exploring to address these data gaps. Therefore, in October 2022, the WHO Regional Office for Europe convened an expert meeting to discuss the current overview of data availability, data collection, and next steps to move forward. Methods: Key stakeholders working in the areas related to childhood obesity surveillance were invited to this meeting to discuss and explore the availability of data, the feasibility, generalisability and practicality of anthropometric data collection in children under five and suggest next steps to move forward. Results: Addressing the challenge of childhood obesity in Europe was discussed, as well as the importance of anthropometric data on children under five years of age. Results of a survey from 31 European countries on the availability of anthropometric data in this age group were presented, focusing on data available from “routine health checks”. Future work is needed to identify the feasibility of accessing this data for surveillance and research purposes. Three Member States, namely Italy, Portugal and Latvia, presented their experience in data collection and perspectives on how to improve data on children under five. Discussions took place on the feasibility, generalisability and practicality of anthropometric data collection, and expected challenges and solutions. It was discussed that further explorations need to be done to harmonize joint data collection efforts coming from different sources within national health information systems. Conclusion: We concluded that it is important to move on from the idea of a perfect, ideal data source. All data sources — and the possibility of combining data from different sources — should be explored. Latvia has demonstrated the feasibility of a kindergarten-based survey and several countries have indicated willingness to participate in similar surveys. Other data sources should be further explored — it is important to gather enough information from routine data sources to be able to use and interpret these data (and combine them with other data). This is particularly important because kindergarten-based data will reach the older children in the under-five age group, while there tends to be higher coverage of younger children through routine data from paediatric systems.